Chilling device held in the palms helped obese women last longer, stick with exercise.

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TUESDAY, March 13, 2012 (HealthDay News) —
Looking for an exercise edge, a
way to stay faithful to regular workouts?

Try chilling out — literally.

Cooling the palms of the hands while working out helped obese
women exercise longer, reports researcher Stacy Sims, a research
scientist and exercise physiologist at Stanford University School of Medicine.

She was to present her findings Tuesday at the American Heart
Association's Epidemiology and Prevention/Nutrition, Physical Activity and
Metabolism scientific sessions in San Diego.

"If you think about adipose [fat] tissue, it's a great
insulator," Sims said. For people who are obese, that means they often get
too hot while exercising.

"It would be like Lance Armstrong wearing a wet suit for the
entire Tour de France," she said. "We're trying to address those
barriers."

Sims wanted to see if cooling off the hands of the women she
studied might help them overcome fatigue and overheating while exercising.

The device she used is already in use by some professional
athletes, according to Sims. She decided to test it in obese women, who she
finds often abandon working out due to overheating and fatigue.

The research was not funded by the company that makes the device.

In the study, Sims evaluated 24 healthy women, aged 30 to 45. None
had exercised long-term in the past. They were obese, with a body-mass
index (BMI) of between 30 and nearly 35. BMI is a measure of body
weight in proportion to height, and obesity begins at a BMI of 30.

She assigned the women to one of two groups: both held the cooling
device in their palms, but only one group had cool water (60.8 degrees
Fahrenheit) running through the device; the other had water that was body
temperature (98.6 degress Fahrenheit) running through the device.

Both groups participated in three exercise sessions a week for 12
weeks. Each session included 10 minutes of body weight exercises, 25 minutes to
45 minutes treadmill
walking with the cooling device and 10 minutes of core-strengthening
exercise. They worked up to the time they could handle on the treadmill.

On the first day and last day of the study, the women did a
1.5-mile walk that was timed.

The cooling group shaved more than five minutes off their time for
the 1.5 mile treadmill test. They averaged 31.6 minutes at the start and 24.6
minutes at the end.

Their exercising heart rate went up, too, 136 beats per minute to
154 beats per minute — a good thing.

The cooling group also took more than two inches off their waist by
end of the 12-week study. That improves not only appearance, but health, since
big waists are linked with heart disease. Their blood pressure also went down,
from 139/84 to 124/70. (Below 120/80 is the goal.)

In contrast, the comparison group didn't show any substantial
differences in any of the measures, Sims found.

The cooling group also stuck with it more, Sims said. "The
controls dropped out early, and skipped a lot of sessions," Sims noted.

The cooling group seemed to get into the regimen, she said.
"At the end, some women were running [on the treadmill]," she said.

"If you reduce the heat stress, you reduce fatigue, sweating
and discomfort," she explained. "You reduce a lot of the
physiological barriers that [make] people say, 'I don't want to
continue.'"

The finding that the comparison group had no substantial effects
"is a bit strange," said Duck-chul Lee, a physical activity
epidemiologist at the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South
Carolina, in Columbia. He said he would have expected some effects after 12
weeks.

He added that "the results may not apply to people exercising
in a cold condition, for example, outside in winter."

Sims wants to do a study of the device with more people. Meanwhile,
she says, it won't hurt to try it this way at home: "Take a water bottle,
freeze it and take that with you in your bare palm [as you work out]. As it
melts you drink the cool water. It's worth a try."

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